Xfinity® Mobile, the wireless service offered by Comcast Corporation®, has successfully managed to attract approximately 200,000 subscribers within five months of its launch. Only existing Comcast® customers subscribed to its Internet and TV service can avail this wireless offering. Xfinity® Mobile was first launched in May and its unlimited data plans had cost about $65 per month. For those already subscribed to its premier packages such as video or landline services, the plans cost around $45.
The wireless offerings offered by Xfinity® Mobile are the lowest among the packages offered by rival wireless carriers in the country. The introduction of Xfinity® Mobile reflects the new moves initiated by Comcast® in order to generate newer ways of revenue. This is because more customers are abandoning traditional pay TV in favor of other services that offer best internet packages along with the TV. The mobile service is now used by Comcast® to gather more subscriber base instead of resorting to providing streaming services.
Comcast® is using the cellular network of Verizon Communications® to make available its service to the customers. For this, the Telco has acquired network capacity from Verizon® for reselling to its subscribers at wholesale rates. Comcast® is considering various possibilities to lower the prices than the rival carriers operating in the country. This is mainly because a majority of the users utilize the Wi-Fi network on their phones the most whether at home or at work.
According to Comcast®, this will ease congestion on the cellular networks as a majority of this data is transferred across Wi-Fi networks. Xfinity® subscribers are provided with the option to connect their smartphones and tablets via the 18 million Wi-Fi hotspots of Comcast® and the cellular network of Verizon®. Previously, the Telco extended the Xfinity® Mobile service into more territories in the nation including Chicago, Philadelphia, and Boston.
Brian Roberts, Comcast’s chairman and CEO said, “It’s off to a great start…on the Verizon network with an MVNO. That relationship [with Verizon] is going well and the product works, and we are pleased with the early results.”
The executives at Comcast® have stated that the service will become more profitable when the subscribers attain a low-to-mid-single-digit among its 25 million broadband subscribers. “Once we get to some minimal scale, which isn’t a huge number, every incremental customer pays for itself,” Brian Roberts added.